


Underestimated No Longer

by Nadia_Hernandez



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: Family History, Magic, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 19:03:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19115824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadia_Hernandez/pseuds/Nadia_Hernandez
Summary: Star the Underestimated was queen for just four days. Now she is underestimated no longer.





	Underestimated No Longer

**Author's Note:**

> It's over! It's over and I has a sad... but also happy since it was a wonderful ride and I loved it so much. Gonna keep writing for this great little show since there was SO much that could have been explored!

My mother did not have soft hands. This is no metaphor to describe her as harsh or cruel--she was not--only to say that she did not have the butter soft hands we associate with aristocracy. None of us do, in truth. To be noble is to work differently than to be a peasant, after all, neither harder nor less. They work that all may eat and we protect them as they till the fields, each doing his own part that we may continue to turn with Father Time’s wheel instead of finding ourselves ground into the mud. With Corn and the Stump’s blessings may we remain long balanced on its precarious span.

Still, even among a nation of strong, sure, calloused hands my mother’s stood out. She was a chef, a baker. Her tapestry is enscribed with a paen to her astonishing creations in the kitchen and for that reason she is adored by Glossaryk and our people alike. I am too grim for either of their tastes and who can blame them. After her glowing smile my downturned mouth must seem uniquely knit for bad news and I am as much a stormcrow as Sebastian. Where she offered them pie I offer them hard work.

Over, under, around and through, grab the little mewni rabbit, pull him through. Pinch it, fold it, tie it in a bow like two little bunny ears made out of dough. Over and under, wherever you roam, sweet little mewni rabbit hop back home. She sang the song cooking, while stirring a pot of bubbling corn chowder or cutting pig-goat butter into the crust of an impeccable pie. She sang it as well while she braided my hair, pulling it into intricate loops and knots, and while she tucked me into bed at night. I was her sweet little mewni rabbit, she told me, and the song would always bring me home to her wherever I had roamed. So Estrella told my mother and Rhina told Estrella before that all the way back to the reign of Moe the Magical.

But would it bring her back to me?

It will not, could never, so with a heavy heart and blurry eyes the sweet little mewni rabbit hopped out to face the Prince of the Dark Monster Nations, formerly a general in Archduke Batwin’s army gone horribly rogue. I remember Batwin’s fat, flushed face when he told me that he had no part in the betrayal, the murder. He was an ugly brute but there was a sweetness in him, for a monster, and he seemed to sympathize with me as much as he could. I almost believed him when he told me that he grieved for my mother as did I but to accept this proved a step too far. Do not write it off as simple bigotry; I knew that Mina could not truly mourn her, either, because a joyous blood lust comes on her when she knows that battle is to be joined. The poor thing is too far gone to be called human, I suppose, but does that make her a monster? That’s a question for the philosophers and I am not one, merely an undaunted queen.

That’s what they call me--Moon the Undaunted, as if I marched unafraid into the razor toothed jaws of the Septarian army to face down a killing machine that even our Solarian warriors could not destroy. He slew all that remained save Mina; six of the Butterfly Guard fallen when none had before since Festivia’s reign and the wars surrounding her. My voice shook when I challenged him, my hands when I clenched the wand, my heart beneath my breast. Perhaps that is what it means to be Undaunted; that I looked into his cold, yellow eyes, stood my ground and unleashed Eclipsa’s Midnight Shriek.

Eclipsa… she is another matter. It is true that she was not well treated by the Butterflies, or the Magic High Commission, but she failed herself to understand the duty of a queen. Our purpose is not to lead lives untainted by struggle but to sacrifice and wage eternal war on behalf of our subjects. After Star gave up my throne I would have as fain lived a simple life as not but my mud dwelling former subjects, unable to accept Eclipsa’s clear preference for the furry and fanged above them, needed guidance and it is not in my nature to deny them. Now I am a queen of the swamps, ruler of the muck and mire. It has not the glamor of my former office but… it was never about the glamor, was it? Never about the crystal spires, elegant dresses and confectionary that melted from your breath before even touching your lips.

I do not hate monsters--not as a race. I admit that their company makes me uneasy, often enough. Septarians, in particular, cause my stomach to clench. I cannot see one without the image of my mother’s body, rent and broken, flashing before my eyes. She was a pastry chef, for corn’s sake. She was not a warrior, was the gentlest of souls, yet Toffee cut her down the same. It was for her sake, and the sake of all Mewni, that I became one--became undaunted.

All monsters are not to blame, are not evil or prone to violence. They can be kind, for example. Old Batwin had no more of cruelty in him than did my mother. He would offer me bug candy when I visited his castle as a child. I declined, after the first taste, but appreciate the heart behind it. I can call certain of his traits weaknesses and know that she shared them, but could never bring myself to name them that in her. 

Star’s friend, Yvgeny Bulgoyboff, is another monster with much to admire about him. He is crude and vulgar but a devoted father and bold in battle. He is a monster--a man?--of honor. It is a queer, slimy sort of honor but I call it honor nonetheless and have been proud to stand beside him in battle against those who would do harm to both our families.

Star’s friend. Star. My precious daughter. She has neither my intestinal aversion to monsters nor Eclipsa’s lustful affinity for them. She moves so easily between our worlds, between all worlds. During her short exile on earth, to learn the limits and safe use of her powers, she so charmed the natives of that dimension that she could truly have made the place her permanent home, had she so chosen. She is the one who can close to this argument in a way that does not end with our deaths or theirs. I am too old to change my thinking in this way--thirty-six--and though Eclipsa is physically not much older than Star she is as set in her ways as I am. The stress of her short life has hardened her as much as the crystal she was trapped in. I cannot. She cannot, though I pray for her to live as happily with her family as fate allows. Star can. I believe it as firmly as I believe that my reward for a life well spent will be to taste my mother’s dragon berry pie once more. She is Underestimated no longer.


End file.
